Why does it seem like too often those in the Emerging Church movement are full of themselves and disdain for all others?
Today I was browsing articles at www.theooze.com and came across one titled "A Passionate Speech to Emerging Christians Everywhere" (found at http://www.theooze.com/articles/article.cfm?id=1420). You can see my response to the author of the article under "Andy" on 7/18/2006 at 1:17pm.
What ticked me off so much about it was the superior, condescending, proud to be antinomian, anti-establishment, anti-everything, tone to it. I've encountered the author's ilk before:
In the spring of 2002 I was invited to participate in the Nazarene Global Theology conference held in Guatemala City, Guatemala. I experienced the awesome privilege of discussing the theology and future of the Nazarene Church with sisters- and brothers-in-Christ from all around the globe. In general it was an amazing, life-marking experience for me and many others.
However, there was one element which left me saddened and troubled. I was only 28 at the time, and there was a contingent of younger-aged people like myself there from many educational institutions around the world. As the week progressed, many, though certainly not all, began to become overly confident that they had the right answers and that anyone else at the conference, primarily those older than ourselves, were stuck in the past and were ignorant of the "truth." Some of them wouldn't have stated it that directly (although some would have), but many of them felt that way and expressed it to varying degrees.
John Brickley, Chris Branstetter, and myself, and perhaps a few others, balked at such nonsense. The problem is that those who feel such, are often the ones who are ignorant of the real issues. They fail to realize they stand on the shoulders of giants, (pardon the overused expression), and that those who've walked in the faith before us deserve our love, admiration, and respect. While we don't have to agree with everything our forebearer's thought, we certainly must remember that every new generation which comes along tends to think itself closer to the truth than those preceding it. It's only foolish arrogance that can hold such a contention.
The simply solution is humility. Yes, sometimes idealism expresses itself rather brashly, and sometimes hyperbole can be used to good effect. But when grace and humility are lacking in our responses and relationships with others, we've gone off the path that Christ paves for us.
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1 comment:
Andy,
Your observation seems like a more than fair criticism of many in the emergent movement. Yes there is a lot of adolescent angst to grind by many emergents, and we need to be far more graceful and merciful.
I also think you are right that humility is that answer for all of us. Many other “emergents” do not want to ignore the great Christian history and cloud of witnesses that has come before us. In some ways we are just trying to gain even greater perspective and also respect our grandfathers and great-grandfathers. We have a much broader, deeper, and richer Christian history than just our modern church parents. Sometimes both parents and children need to humble themselves. We need to acknowledge both the wisdom of the past from our parents and the discovery of something new by the young as both having merit so that we can keep growing.
None of us have all the answers, but even though I tend to “deconstruct” the past I don’t want to chuck it out the window and start over with out it. At the same time I don’t think the generations before us had all the answers so humility is also needed even when there is great and valuable experience to draw from.
Thanks for reminding those of us that resonate with the emergent church we need to be humble.
James
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